I’m trying to understand why Rosberg stayed in front of Lewis after the front wing failure.

Lewis was obviously able to keep up with him as he was right behind him so Rosberg’s pace was compromised by the failing front wing.

So why didn’t Rosberg give the spot back on the way to the pit?

I just thought it was ridiculous and very dangerous because if the front wing had come off, it could have hit Lewis’s car and destroyed his race or even worse injured him.

We saw similar behavior at another race recently where Rosberg was trying to slow down Lewis even though they were on different races and Rosberg didn’t know if Lewis was fighting for P1.

Of course, Mercedes should have boxed Lewis especially after he explained that the tires were gone but to see Rosberg function as a roadblock that’s about to explode and take Lewis with him on purpose made no sense.

Doesn’t look that way according to F1F’s lap times. Lewis had a time of 108.33 on lap 27 and a time of 110.8 on lap 28 following Nico which is 2.5 seconds slower.

Nico’s time dropped from 105.5 to 114.41 but there was a delay for entering the pits. Overall it was over a net 2 second delay for Lewis even though he was drafting and using DRS…

The point is more of the common sense type of the wing goes off clips Lewis and both cars are out or of the type the wing goes off and hits Lewis himself a la Massa 2009 (that can injure drivers, right?)

If Rosberg is incapable of being able to move over on his own, then Merc should have done it for him. That’s a double failure from Mercedes there for failing to bring in Lewis when he said he needed new tyres and then for allowing him to be Rosberg’s front wing target.

If Merc would not do it, the FIA should have given Rosberg and Mercedes a massive penalty. It is ridiculous to be driving with a part that may come off at any second and injure another driver.

I CANNOT believe that Webber got a reprimand and a 10 spot penalty and Rosberg can drive with a a compromised wing at 300km/h that may fly off at any moment and kill anyone include the audience.

I know that Rosberg is a bright kid but sometimes he just appears to have the iq or the eq if you prefer that of a toddler.

I think, to be honest, that Rosberg wasn’t in a position to be thinking about his team mates race. I think all of his attention would have been on his own car. Remember that he couldn’t actually see the damage to his car and he only knew how he should be driving by what the team was telling him.

As for Lewis, I think he was pretty brave to be as close as he was to Nico, I think in hindsight you can say, yeah sure Nico should have let him past. But at the time, given what was going on, I think that really was not an important issue.

I actually think it was the right thing to do.
Rosberg’s wing could have failed completely at any given time. That would have meant a massive loss of downforce, or even worse a front wing jammed underneath the car.
Then he wouldn’t have been able to neither stop or turn.
With Lewis ahead, both of them could have been wiped out if Rosberg’s wing had fallen off.

Have we seen how a dislodged wing at the tip behaves? Is it guaranteed to go down or can it fly if the separation happens in a corner or in an unexpected manner when 1 side of the wing is still attached and the other is not?

I’m sure it’s called a front wing for good reason as opposed to the front bumper…

For all we know it could have flown off and chopped Nico’s or Lewis’s head off. How would Lewis have dealt with a headless Nico driving in front of him?

When a piece of equipment is not fastened to the car and there are sparks flying about you like it’s the 4th of July, you don’t try to stay ahead but more try to keep your head – see how I subtly led into that:-)

I don’t think there’s any excuse for Nico staying in front and doing 300km/h with Lewis right behind him…

I thought it was bizarre that Mercedes didn’t move Rosberg behind Hamilton. Yes, there would be the danger of Rosberg having a failure and sending him ploughing into Hamilton, but I think most would assume that Hamilton would get clear fairly quickly. Instead he was left behind where he was losing time and at risk of having a nosecone or Rosberg’s entire car spinning in his path.

At the same time with Hamilton behind if for some reason his nose would break in the same way before they got back to pit in then they could call him in too and do a double (but costly time wise) stop.

Just to throw a scenario at the topic, what if Rosberg moved out of the way of Hamilton, only for his wing to go under the car and go straight into the back of him at the next turn?
Just about anything could have happened.